1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, in particular, to a computer implemented method, portal application system, and computer program product for optimizing performance in a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a computer implemented method, portal application system, and computer program product of a pattern for navigating content in a portal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A portal is a Web site that aims to be an entry point to other Web sites and back-end applications. A portal typically offers a search engine and/or links to useful pages, and possibly news or other services. These services are usually provided for free in the hope that users will make the site their default home page or at least visit it often. Popular examples are Yahoo!® and MSN®, the Microsoft® Network. Yahoo!® is a registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. MSN® and Microsoft® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
A portlet is a Web-based application that processes requests and generates dynamic content. The end-user essentially sees a portlet as a specialized content area within a portal page. Depending on the content nature of the portlet, the user may use this area to view different types of content such as travel information, business news, or even local weather. A portal provides users with the capability to customize content, appearance and position of a portlet.
A portal usually has some portlets to connect to back-end content management systems to display content items, such as news. These portlets display content items and use links to connect to other content items. Without an intuitive navigation box, a user does not have an overall view of these content items. After several clicks on the links, a user may lose his position in these content items, such that the user does not know the context of the current content item or how this content item is related to other content items.
Users are accustomed to graphical user interfaces provided by computer applications. For example, most users use Windows® Explorer to view folders and files instead of issuing the Microsoft® Disk Operating System (MS-DOS®) command “dir” to view folders and files. Windows® and MS-DOS® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. A Portal provides tools to create pages and labels, and a menu to navigate through these pages and labels. But this menu is only available to the portal itself, as it cannot be applied by a portlet to navigate its own content.
Without a navigation box connecting to content items, the usual way a portlet displays content items is not friendly to users.